The present invention relates to a prisoner restraint system for transporting prisoners in a vehicle, and more particularly to a contoured transport seat back and cooperating restraint assembly for supporting and substantially immobilizing a rearwardly handcuffed prisoner while seated in a vehicle.
The transport of prisoners while in the custody of law enforcement personnel presents numerous risks to the safety of both the officers and prisoners involved. When not effectively restrained rearwardly handcuffed prisoners are subject to injury from potentially violent contact with the interior of the vehicle passenger compartment, particularly when the vehicle decelerates abruptly or negotiates roadway turns. With their hands cuffed behind them, prisoners are unable to use their hands or arms for lateral support. Further, such prisoners are frequently intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, ill or otherwise incapacitated thereby further limiting their capacity to maintain a fully upright seated position. Such incapacitated persons are subject to vomiting, increasing risk of suffocation if the subject is not maintained upright.
Traditional belt restraints in cooperation with traditional rear seat configurations fail to provide sufficient lateral support to a rearwardly cuffed prisoner. Prisoners could slip down in the seat so that the belt could become entangled around their necks. Rearwardly handcuffed prisoners are also subject to injury to the arms, shoulders, wrists or back when restrained by seat and shoulder belts in traditional rear seats with hands pinned between the prisoner and the seat back.
When not effectively restrained, prisoners are an obvious potential risk to the safety of law enforcement personnel during transport. The officer is particularly at risk when in close proximity while reaching across the prisoner with both hands to secure a traditional belt restraint.
Traditional fabric seats present costly maintenance problems. Such seats are easily torn by the handcuffs worn by the prisoners occupying the vehicles. Further, it is not uncommon for such prisoners to discharge bodily fluids which are difficult to remove from fabric traditional upholstery. Traditional seats typically define an opening between the seat back and seat bottom where weapons or other contraband can be hidden by the prisoners occupying the seat.
These and other problems result in increased maintenance time for law enforcement vehicles, increased risk of bodily injury to law enforcement personnel, and increased liability on the part of governmental agencies for injuries sustained by those taken into custody.
In recent years, single-piece, hard-surfaced rear seats have been introduced in police and similar vehicles in an attempt to eliminate some of the deficiencies encountered in the use of traditional rear seats and prior art belt restraints. Such assemblies do have certain advantages over conventional seats, particularly in connection with ease of cleaning and prevention of hidden contraband. Such rear seats, however, fail to effectively immobilize in an upright position a seated prisoner for transport and fail to minimize an officer's proximity to a prisoner while engaging and tightening a belt restraint around such a potentially dangerous individual. In fact, the hard slippery surface of such seats increase the likelihood that handcuffed prisoners will slide along the seat or be thrown about in the rear of the police vehicle.